THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has said demonetisation lacks statutory backing and but since the decision was taken, it should have been implemented without causing hardships to the people. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr Chandy said on Friday that demonetisation was done in 1978 by repealing the “High Denomination Bank Notes (Demonetization) Ordinance” and further established an Act on similar lines. “This shows the legal tender of currency cannot be withdrawn by a notification, but only by an act of Parliament, something that the union government has failed to do”, said Mr Chandy.
Article 300 A states that “no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law”. Therefore, by denying citizens the right to withdraw their money, which is their property, the union government also violated constitutional principles. He pointed out that almost all political parties had welcomed demonetisation as an anti-corruption measure. However, the ill-conceived and hastily implemented policy had plunged the common man into an abyss, for no fault of his. In one stroke, the implementation nullified 86.4 per cent (amounting to Rs 14.2 lakh crore) of the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes in circulation.
How could the Centre justify freezing Rs 7,000 crore loans of 63 willful defaulters when the common man was being subjected to hardships? This pointed to selective patronage and crony capitalism. Similarly, no steps had been to bring back the stash of Rs 30 lakh crore from offshore tax havens, he said. He urged Mr Modi to direct the RBI to lift curbs on the Rs 130,000-crore cooperative sector, which had ground to a halt following demonetization.
